1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to tab-indexed printed material, and more particularly, to a method for and a special receptacle device which implements the organizing of merchandizing coupons by means of logical filing of them for easy and effective retrieval later, while shopping. This invention uses an indexing method whereby each filing division relates to one aisle or other sales area of an actual store; and the device includes an on-board store directory for use in pre-sorting coupons by the location of their product within that store. Additionally, the device may include: locationally-related dual-purpose point-of-purchase advertising on the dividers, divider components ring bound so as to manually-rotate, or a separate special receptacle tethered to the coupon-holding device for temporary retension of coupons for products selected until such time as they are tendered for credit at the cashier's counter.
With prior art that sort by category of product, the categories are broad and encompass several types of items. Therefore, while in the store, the user has to "fine-sort" through a general category to find those coupons for the specific type of item that one contemplates purchasing.
When using the devices that have previously been patented, the shopper goes through the following three determinations each time one wants to see if there is a coupon for a product: he must find the product within the store; he must determine under which general filing category such an item may have been pre-filed; and he must discover whether or not that filing division is the correct one in which to be looking for its coupon. To make matters worse, our shopper must do this for each product in which he has an interest.
The present invention allows the user to avoid repetious in-store sorting through a number of divisions on each aisle. Since it is indexed by aisle, all coupons retrieved from an aisle-related grouping of coupons are relevant to purchases that may be made right there on that related aisle.
No longer must the shopper search through each of a number of filing divisions for coupons that are relevant to products being considered on just one aisle. With the present invention, all coupons within an aisle's division are relevant thereon.
The following steps apply to retrieval of coupons from the present device: a shopper has previously compiled a shopping list on the overlay and, while shopping, reviews the names of those items and their aisle locations to determine which aisles to shop; on one of those aisles, the shopper finds a grouping of shelved products within the category of one of the listed items; and retrieves the coupons previously filed under that aisle's division and reviews them for coupons applicable to that item.
This device is meant to advance the public benefits of simpler filing and less confusing and faster in-store retrieving. The manner in which it goes about these objectives is to organize coupons in a manner that minimizes the numbers of determinations that a shopper needs to engage in during one visit to the store, and to make those that remain simpler, so that the shopper has more mental energy to devote to more constructive things while there, such as comparison shopping, and still gets through with coupon shopping faster than would otherwise be the case.
The device implementing the present invention combines this filing by aisle feature with a store directory feature so that the user may refer to the store directory in order to determine the product's aisle location and deduce the correct aisle division into which to file away newly-acquired coupons. The device therefore helps accomplish the two things that are imparatives when coupon shopping: finding the item and finding any coupon for it.
This presentation by aisles also serves to assist the shopper in using more coupons, because review through the grouping may well suggest the additional purchase of one or more other items from that aisle, even though the items were not on the shoppers list. This tends to benefit shoppers, since a coupon clipped and unused is a wasted opportunity to save, and since greater use of coupons tends generally to reduce ones annular total expenditures for those items.
During the better part of the last two decades, merchandising coupons have been issued by product manufacturers to encourage shoppers to but their product as a result of a credit allowance on its purchase price. During that time, real family purchasing power has declined, so shoppers have endeavored to make increasing use of coupons to defray costs. Throughout this period, shoppers have attempted to organize their coupons in a manner that would allow them to re-cast the filing and retrieval cycle in such a manner as would be simple, yet could be joined to other shopping operations in a manner that would make the entire process easier by being less confusing and frustrating.
Many shopper report having become discouraged with coupon shopping; and this stems from using ineffective filing methods, such as indexing coupons according to product category. The inefficiency of this method stymies the user's individual resolve, because one has to endure tedious in-store sorting of coupons within those product categories in order to obtain relevant coupons.
By making coupon shopping more scientific and logical, it is anticipated that it will become less confusing and frustrating, and that this will tend to induce the users of this novel device to stick to couponing more tenaciously, thereby achieving more admirable long-term savings.
Various patents have been issued for coupon organizers. However, their filing methods have undertaken to sort only according to "what" general item category the coupon had been issued for, by "what" specific product the coupon is for, or by "when" it will expire. Until the instant invention, no organizer has undertaken to sort by "where" the user will be when he or she will next need to have that coupon in hand.
The present device's locational filing method and its locational shopping list overlay on its store directory enable the user to quickly and easily bring together, while shopping, all three key ingredients for successful coupon shopping with a minimum of effort, the decision-maker, the product, and the coupon for that product.
During the last two decades, coupon issuance through newpapers, magazines, direct mail, and in-product enclosure has soared. But this volume of issuance has outpaced the coupon shoppers' abilities to absorb and use the additionally issued coupons effectively. This is due to their filing methods' not being capable of supplying additional helpful information about where an item is in a particular store and where its coupon would be stored within their coupon-holding device.
For example, by 1989, some 276 billion manufacturers' grocery coupons were distributed annually, each having an average value of approximately 46.cent.. Nationwide in the United States, approximately 40% of the supermarkets have extended the inducement and offer double coupon redemption credit, up to some fixed maximum amount per coupon. If all of the coupons that were distributed in 1989 had been redeemed, even for single-value credit, their total value would have been approximately $126 billion; and that amount is roughly half of all that was spent on all grocery items purchased at supermarkets throughout the country.
However, only $3.12 billion in total credit was obtained by shoppers. This means that only about two and one-half percent of all coupons distributed were redeemed. That translates into one coupon in forty being utilized. Because of such a low rate of redemption, coupons saved shoppers only about one and one-fourth percent, on average, on all of their supermarket purchases. These data make clear the untapped potential savings yet to be achieved if a device were to exist which would somehow make in-store finding of relevant coupons significantly easier.
The novel organizing method utilized by this invention makes every coupon retrieved under that aisle's division relevant to a purchase that may occur right there while shopping on that aisle. Furthermore, because of the locational nature of the present invention's filing method, it aptly receives the addition of other location oriented features which allow it to go beyond merely being a method for finding one's coupons efficiently, extending out to include listing items to be obtained, and finding them in the store efficiently. It is this total effectiveness that so enhances the shopper's use of time and mental energy that it appears to users to have tipped the scales in the direction of making shopping with coupons worth the effort for those who engage in this invention's location oriented systems.
The device, using this invention's filing method, fulfills shopping objectives in a variety of manners. First, such a filing method can best function with the inclusion of an on-board store directory within the device. Using the directory, one may find items in the store without asking; and determine where to file away newly-acquired coupons. The combination of the filing by aisle and store directory features enables one to relate what is known or can be determined in such a manner as to solve for what is unknown. Examples of this are the solving for the location of the coupon when one has located its product, or solving for the location of a product when one has located its coupon. Second, with a store directory exhibiting item names and their respective aisle location, the placement of an overlay above it allows the user to compile a shopping list on that overlay, and, while shopping, to refer to the following: the name of the item and any additional specifications, such as any particular brand name, product feature, flavor, quantity, size, color, etc., as a reminder; and to the respective aisle location of each as a means of shopping only the aisles that need to be shopped in order to obtain all of the items that are on the shopping list. In this manner, the shopper avoids being unnecessarily tempted to engage in impulse buying, and significantly speeds up and simplifes the shopping process. After, shopping, the notations made on the overlay may be erased by means of the user cleaning it with a dampened piece of paper toweling.
2. Description of Relevant Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,260,055 to Slaybaugh has product categories placed on its indexed divider tabs, and suggested that these divisions might either be arranged alphabetically or in an order known to the user in which the items involved would be encountered while shopping. The present invention goes a couple of steps farther. Its tab indicia more perfectly mirror the store's layout than some general arrangement of broad product categories, not all of which are necessarily clustered together anyway. The present invention accomplishes this by means of aisle indicators that use the same letters or numbers as the actual aisles and these are interspersed with the letter abbreviations for special non-aisle sales areas where appropriate. A second distinction is that the present invention includes an on-board store directory, which enables the user to definitively determine where to file a coupon away; and definitively determine from which division to retrieve it. This is not always the case when using a device like that shown in the Slaybaugh patent, which has divisions labelled "canned vegetables", "fruit", and "sauce". A user might find it difficult to determine where to file or retrieve a coupon for a can of stewed tomatoes, the kind used to make homemade spaghetti sauce, for example. Tomatoes technically are fruit, the item is canned, although not a vegetable, and the item is used in conjunction with the making of a sauce. Such a quandry is totally avoided with the present device because the stewed tomatoes are shelved on a certain aisle or sales area, and there is no room for duplicity.
The prior art, including the Slaybaugh patent, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,450,994 to Holland and 4,795,196 to Hyun, which use a filing method indexed according to general product categories, necessitate that while in the store the user must do a significant amount of this fine-sorting. For example, among the filing division labelled "beverages", one may have to fine-sort for coffee coupons on one aisle; and then may have to again sort through that "beverages" division during the same shopping trip on other aisles to look for coupons for other beverage-related items, such as apple juice, soft drink, etc. This means that many of the various filing divisions may have to be gone through repeatedly during the same trip. The store shopping cart is not the place to attempt to accomplish this fine-sorting, given its shortage of flat work space and the instability that comes with the movements of the cart.
Other prior art, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,591,054 to Blossom and 4,802,575 to Martin, have a two-tiered approach to their filing divisions, whereby each of the principal categories are broken into sub-category filing divisions. Although, these devices offer more divisions, and thereby reduce some of the in-store fine-sorting, it is not significantly reduced since each of these devices sorts only by product categories.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,034,539 to Economy discloses a store directory. Its device is not even a coupon organizer, but instead is a writing desk that attaches to the topmost horizontal member of the back rack of the front hopper of a shopping cart and pivots so as not to interfere with the carts' nesting within one another while not in use. Users may clip the shopping list that they have brought into the store onto this desk, then compare the items on their shopping list with a store directory that is made a part of this shopping cart attachment. Consequently, the device is of no assistance to the user outside of the store, either in determining the aisle division into which to file a coupon, or in serving as a reminder by listing the items from which one may choose, which are but two of the benefits of using the present invention.
Furthermore, the instant device's use of an on-board portable store directory also makes it possible to place a transparent overlay over that store directory. Since that transparent overlay is superimposed above the list of the store's items and their aisle locations, the overlay allows the user to look through it and to compile thereon an erasable shopping list, right within the device. One compiles the shopping list by means of perceiving the names of items thereunder, which are the names of the items at that store from which one may select, by observing the image of the name right through the transparent overlay. Next, one may circle, underline or otherwise indicate that the item is needed and may add some particulars regarding it. Then while shopping, the shopper reviews the names of items marked on the shopping list, notes their aisle locations, and organizes one's shopping around the aisles which must be shopped in order to obtain all of the items that are on the list.
Therefore, while using the present device, one does not have to compare two separate lists while in the store, as is the case with the device patented by Economy, because with the present device one's shopping list and the store directory are one visual entity rather than two separate fields. Also, the inclusion of a shopping list into the coupon-holding device tends to ensure that neither one's list nor one's coupons are forgotten and that both get brought to the store, even on small shopping trips; and this results in more consistent coupon use and greater overall savings.
Beyond the Economy patent's writing desk attachment, U.S. Pat. No. 5,002,215 to Gregoire, the Holland patent, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,442,940 to McIntosh and 4,966,318 to Dutka all utilize the principal horizontal members of the shopping cart to support their coupon-holding devices. The Gregoire patent is a file box on a plate that straddles the main horizontal members of the top of an opened front hopper and is held from sliding forward and back by downward extensions beneath the plate. The Holland patent is a file box that clips onto the handle of the shopping cart. The McIntosh patent is a file box with cam-shaped hooks that engage the upper horizontal member of the frontmost rack of the front hopper of the shopping cart from which the device hangs. The Dutka patent is an accordian-sided coupon container with two vertically-mounted flexible attachment tabs that eminate from the back of the container near its top and wrap around a horizontal member of the shopping cart and seal to the back of the container to allow the device to be hung from that horizontal member. None of the prior art utilizes a separate retension strap; and none has a retension mechanism designed to mount horizontally to stabilize the device against one or more of the vertical members of the frontmost rack of the shopping cart to retain the device in position as it rests upon the floor portion of the front hopper of the shopping cart, as set forth by the instant invention.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,892,192 to Hague and 4,463,848 to Parker use alternatives to the filing of coupons according to general product categories. The Hague patent sorts coupons alphabetically by product name. The Parker patent indexes coupons by the month of their expiration date; and the Martin patent also includes an expiration date filing method as an alternative along with filing by general product categories.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,911 to Manuel discloses a device for grouping items on one's shopping list under broad product categories by means of names of items being printed on strips that the user clips into position under that broad category so that the shopper obtains each item in that category's department before leaving it and does not have to return to it.
The Slaybaugh patent included a pocket within the device's cover into which the shopper could place coupons for products that had been selected from the shelves that were in the process of being purchased.
Several of the devices of the prior art made allowances for the shopper to be able to bring related articles associated with couponing along into the store while shopping, paricularly sissors. None, until now, however, has been designed to bring in a store directory, or to include an on-board component whereupon the user may compile a shopping list; and none has a separate special receptacle tethered to the principal device within which to temporarily file coupons for products selected until reaching the cashier.
The general shape of coupon-holding devices has evoluted from that of a bi-fold coupon album as seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,911,605 to Morhack, 4,004,690 to Giarrittia, and 4,312,393 to Green, on to a rigid file box as seen in the patents to McIntosh, Holland, Parker, Hyun, Martin, Hague, and Gregoire, on to a semi-rigid box with accordian sidewalls as seen in the Dutka device, and finally culminating in the compact, adequate and attractive forms as seen in the flexible clutch purses of Slaybaugh, Blossom and the present invention. As to the latter format, the present invention is the only one with a mechanism for retaining it while it is in use.
The Hyun patent included advertising on its dividers. However, these dividers were indexed by generic product categories; and each advertisement modifies and further describes the generic product within whose category it falls. Nothing, however, with regard to the advertisement in the Hyun patent helps the shopper to locate that advertised product within the store because they are category-related; the present invention's ads, by contrast, relate to aisle numbers and thus are locationally-related. Therefore, they inform the shopper about where to locate the advertised product in that store.
The aforementioned examples of prior art universally arranged their filing division components in a card-file modality, except for the Martin patent with multi-pocketed pages mounted into a multiple ring binding. But the Martin patent does not claim to be designed to have leaves that are mounted so as to render the device flat-opening, as is the case with the instant invention.
The depth dimension of the pockets within which the coupons are filed in prior art are uniformly scant, thus making it difficult to finger through the coupons in the process of reviewing them. The present invention manually-rotates to fully open so that the user has unfettered access to that compartment's envelope; and thus, unrestrained access to the coupons therein. This makes it much easier to sort through and review them.
The Hyun invention's device has no top; but does have several external advertisements placed on its sides. The filing method Hyun uses is that of filing by generic product category. Therefore, that device may be used just as well in any store as in the store whose name is set forth in those advertisements. However, the present device's tabs are locationally-indexed to a common pattern of shopper traffic through a particular store. Since the present device functionally relates to only that one store, its solo advertisement on its cover, which is positioned on the cover's top, serves to inform the user of the device as to the name of the store to which that device is indexed. This may be of importance to the shopper who has more than one of these devices, each indexed to a different store, for it allows the shopper to tell the devices apart without opening them up to look inside.